Hestia's backpack hung over her left shoulder as she made her way up the steps of her high school. The stairs were crowded and she kept her head down as she carefully weaved through the several groups that stopped to catch up. She was finally entering her senior year, and unlike many of her fellow students, she had already been at school for a few hours in order to update her school ID and receive her schedule. She had a new locker this year, and she was disappointed at its placement. Her old one had been right across the hall from the library, which made it easier for her to escape the crowded hall.
This year her locker rested fairly close to the cafeteria, which meant the hall would always be busy for the different lunch hours, and she also happened to be a locker neighbor to one of the varsity football players. She wasn't sure who was her other neighbor was. She opened her locker to retrieve her textbooks for her first three classes. She had decided to finish her history requirement by taking a world history class as her first period, which was followed by a calculus class, and her final class before lunch was a lit class. She decided that she wouldn't sit in the front row this year, and instead she chose a seat in the back left corner of the class room. She was excited at the prospect of having a window to daydream out of during her history class.
She slid her text book on her desk and retrieved a notebook from her backpack. She simply set her bag in between her feet and she started filling out the date and class information on the first page of the notebook. She didn't expect any other classmates to wander in for another ten minutes, but she soon heard shuffling in the desk next to her. The student setting up his own textbook next to her was familiar. She had seen him in the lunch room and in other classes before, but she didn't really know him personally. His hair was longer this year, the fluorescent lights dancing between his blonde bangs, and she was careful not to stare too long as he plopped down into the desk.
He made it clear that he didn't want to be here as his fingers drummed upon the desk in the rhythm of some rock song. "What time does this class start?"
Hestia cleared her throat as she sat up. "In about five minutes. I wonder where everyone else is."
He simply grunted a response before he leaned forward and started scribbling over his notebook. He worked on a few doodles as more classmates moved in and took up the rest of the desks. The instructor finally came in five minutes late, and he took straight to the chalk board to write out his name and other information. After he completed this task, he leapt straight into lecturing as he placed stacks of the syllabus on the front desks of each row. They were slowly passed back, and soon the back rows had moved all of the extras down the line to Hestia's desk. She placed them under her textbook and continued to take notes on the rather fast paced lecture. The instructor would occasionally stop to push his glasses back up his nose and to reference textbook page numbers, but few students actually shuffled to these noted sections.
By the end of the class Hestia had filled several pages worth of notes, and she was the last one to pack up. She took the stack of syllabuses to the instructor and left towards her next class. Her calculus class was held in one of the chemistry classrooms. Each table had a spot for two students, and she found herself sitting next to the blonde boy again. She had managed to learn his name during rollcall. Victor. She didn't catch his last name, however. This class moved at a much slower pace as the instructor passed out some review materials. His voice was monotonous and his round stature and long nose reminded Hestia of a rat.
After her third class she pushed through the crowd to her locker. She could barely open the door wide enough to slide her textbooks in as more and more students shuffled towards other classes and to the cafeteria. The Varsity football player and a few of his friends crowded around the locker to her left, causing her to squeeze up against the locker to her right. She managed to remove the last two textbooks for her other classes before finally closing her locker door. Her red hair tickled against her cheeks as she turned to walk towards the cafeteria. Her eyes carefully followed the blonde boy again as his fingers worked the lock on the locker next to her own. He must have been waiting. Instead of stopping to speak to him, she continued off on her own journey.
By the end of the day she was debating on just carrying all of her textbooks with her at the beginning of the day. It would be much more effective than returning to her locker before lunch. She decided to complete her homework in the library, instead of trying to complete it at home. The first day left her with much more than she had been expecting, and so by the time she was leaving campus, the sun was beginning to set. That meant she would have to hurry home, and she kept her eyes straight ahead so as not to draw attention to herself. The streets were soaked from a random rain burst that must have occurred while she was still inside the library, and she prayed that it wouldn't start up again as she maneuvered through the streets.
The sirens started up early tonight as she made her way through a short alleyway. She had hoped she would have her own car this year, like most of her classmates, but her birthday had passed a few weeks before the start of school, leaving her with a tattered book and a "new" jacket. Her mother had stayed up the night before scrubbing the blood from it and she even went through the trouble of patching over the gun shot hole with a pretty flower accent. As she made her way home, she wondered what it would be like once she finally reached her destination.
As she turned into the final alleyway leading towards the back of her home, she heard a strange sound coming from somewhere up ahead. She slowed her pace as she approached the sound only to find a man clutching his throat, a sickening gurgling rising up towards her ears. She crouched and gently touched his hand before hearing a series of noises coming from behind her. She held her breath as she tried to conceal herself behind a dumpster. Another man stumbled towards the wall in front of her, a knife sticking from the base of his skull. He made eye contact with her, and she bit her lower lip as tears slowly welled up behind her lashes. She cursed herself for staying so late after school, and then she cursed her instructors for piling so much homework onto her for the first day of school.
She looked back down at the man she had found initially to find that his movement had stopped. She decided to stay behind the dumpster until she was sure that whoever took care of these two men wouldn't also make quick work of her. She waited for what seemed years before finally moving back out into the alleyway. She fixed her backpack, but before she could head back towards her home, she was lifted from the pavement. Her backpack was torn from her and she tried to scream only to have a bear paw strongly grasp her face. She began to kick wildly, the tears free falling from her darkened eyes. She heard something hiss in her ear, but her pounding heart drowned out the spoken words.
Soon she was being pushed into the backseat of a dark colored car, and the feeling of cold steel pushed up against her temple. She sat up straight and didn't dare utter a single word as the car whipped down unfamiliar roads and they soon pulled up to a darkened building. She was drug from the backseat by her hair and was being pulled through the doors of the building. The warehouse was vacant, and she began to pray that perhaps her father's boss had influence over these men that had snatched her up so quickly. Her shoes clicked loudly against the pavement flooring of the warehouse, and the men behind her occasionally pushed her to make her walk faster. She thought of what her final moments would be like as they finally stopped in the middle of the warehouse.
She locked her eyes onto the back of the towering man before her, his hair just beginning to pepper. He was on the phone, and his voice low. One of the men behind her cleared his throat, and the man said a quick goodbye before hanging up. He turned to face towards the man who had cleared his throat, and his eyes stopped on the girl instead. Her mascara was running down her cheeks, her nose bright red from her sobbing in the car. She steeled herself as best she could as he reached into his pocket. Hestia closed her eye tightly and her face flinched away as she expected him to retrieve a weapon of some sorts.
She heard him shuffle forward as he approached her, and soon a gentle hand pushed some of her hair behind her ear. Her eyes shot open and looked towards the man's hand. His other extended towards her as he offered her a white handkerchief. "It's clean, I assure you." His voice was calm and she hesitantly took the fabric from his fingers. "I apologize for the rough manner in which you were treated. You happened to be in the wrong place, and at the wrong time."
The fabric was soft against her cheeks as she cleaned the mascara from her face. It left dark smudges across the vast expanse of tightly woven snow. She caught the golden lettering at the corner and read it aloud. "C.F." Her eyes moved slowly to his face. "Don Falcone?" Her voice trembled as she realized that she had truly entered the lion's den.